Equinox Music Festival, Spring 2022
The core values of Living-Learning Communities (LLCs) include the intentional connection of classroom learning goals into the co-curricular residential spaces of our halls and the pursuit of self-directed learning for our student groups. First year students want to engage with their passions when they come to college and oftentimes the curricular model of general education requirements create a potential barrier to engaging with the energy that these student population bring with to their first year of college. As a high impact practice project-based learning is a way to accomplish this goal. The College of Communication, Information, and Media (CCIM) Living-Learning Community is a group of nearly 350 students whose varied interests revolve around the pursuit of their passion both in and out of the classroom. One of the central questions to learning opportunities facilitated outside of the classroom is how do we engage students in learning when the opportunity is voluntary and when the learning can be challenging? Colin Bell, an Academic Peer Mentor in this community and a Telecommunications major himself recognized this desire and set to work developing the CCIM LLC Production Team and Equinox Music Festival in the Fall semester of 2021.
Equinox Music Festival quickly became one of the most impressive project-based learning opportunities engaged with voluntarily by a group of students that I have ever seen. The goal of this project was to engage students in a voluntary opportunity to plan a concert that would be funded by Ball State Living-Learning Communities, and out of this project connect a group of students with professionals as well as the local community. This project begins August 2021 when Colin set to work to make his vision of a concert that is entirely student led come to life. The marketing strategy was simple: “Do you want to plan a concert? Come join Production Team!”—but this simple premise brought students into a project that would ask them to think critically about what is actually involved with planning an on-campus concert featuring local musicians. The first draft of the learning plan for this project-based opportunity was created by Colin as we began identifying the areas that we need support and information about to make this happen and identifying the ways that we could get this information to support our student group for the project. Production Team began as a group of 15 students who were interested in accomplishing a goal that had not been decided yet, but with various backgrounds in audio production and marketing, they had the tools and passion to accomplish great things with the support of Housing and Residence Life.
The learning began with a collaborative event planned with Emens Auditorium on Ball State Campus, Emens Auditorium has hosted artists such as Jason Mraz and Alex Cooper, and within this circle of professional Directors, marketing leads, and Stage Managers, students were explained what they were signing up for with this project: Liability waivers, Insurance coverage, equipment reservations and expenses, recruiting talent, and marketing. With a long bullet point list of tasks created and very little experience, the students involved set to work in the coming months identifying where they wanted to start. The months that unfolded revealed the unique problems that needed to be solved as students reached out into the local community surrounding Ball State. The Muncie, IN music scene was ready and willing to accept a new concert hosted by Housing and Residence Life, and Equinox Music Festival hosted by Ball State University, Housing and Residence Life Living-Learning Communities was born. Bands from Ball State and central Indiana were recruited by students on the production team and this project began to have a mind of its own with creative solutions to the logistical coordination and management of these artist. As the professional staff member overseeing this project, I began getting inquiries about the development of this project from Indiana Public Radio and other new sources who wanted to be part of the coverage as well as local businesses that had been contacted by students on the Production Team for advertising and band support, not least of which was Green Village Records who agreed to carry merchandise from the bands as a way to support the local music scene.
The date was set for March 26th and the Production Team students began pursuing their tasks. The Marketing team began putting together save the date posters of custom created content and branding based on the best practices of their classes, and the coordination team had the chance to experience what it is like to coordinator dates and locations with bands that were coming to Ball State campus for the first time for this event. Colin and BSU Professional Staff assisted with helping these students understand the budgetary considerations of this project as well as the legal and safety considerations that needed to be coordinated with Ball State’s Office of Risk Management and Legal Services. The date of the event grew ever closer and considerations of the production team shifted from marketing to production and equipment.
A goal identified by the team was to record the concert audio and to document it from a journalistic perspective. One student volunteered themselves to record the live audio into pro tools and engineer it into functional tracks for the after the concert, and a number of others readied themselves with DSLR Cameras provided by the Living-learning Community to capture the moment that they had all be waiting for. Without a group of CCIM students who had the desire to problem solve on their own, this task would be nearly impossible for housing staff to provide the expertise to accomplish these goals. A concert equipment company out of central Indiana was contracted with to provide the equipment for our event and the members of the production team would assist with the set up and execution of Equinox.
The day of the event arrived in late March and the tension held in the air because in true Indiana fashion, it was supposed to snow, but with the number of approvals and paperwork on file, the concert was going to happen outside in the snow or we were going to have to cancel. Out in the snow flurries production team members helped set up the audio equipment, speakers, and monitors for the concert under the instruction of professionals in this kind of work. Bands began to arrive, but to the frustration of the production team, two bands cancelled 20 minutes before we were support to start. The problem solving on the day of the event was just another example of learning how to adjust and adapt to the changing conditions of the music industry, these problems are real and salient to the career paths that these students may choose to pursue and this concert gave them an experience to support those goals.
The magic happened as soon as the audience began to show up. Nearly 150 people stood out in the snow flurries to witness the result of the months of work that went into this concert and the bands that performed had a performance that, with cold fingers, they would not soon forget. In the wake of this project the conversations continued in reflection about the year and Colin Bell worked with the Production Team and goal setting about the next year. They learned a lot in the months leading up to this event, but in reflection they wanted to accomplish more based on what they learned and with a written record of guest experts and learning outcomes, a Production Team: Equinox Music Festival project facilitation guide was created to sequence the learning steps throughout the year, illuminated by what we learned for the first iteration of what I hope will be an annual learning project.
The audio recordings and photography from Equinox Music Festival 2022 are currently being used for the launch promotion efforts Equinox Music Festival 2023 by this year’s group of Production Team members. Some of the students who participated in Production Team 21-22 are living in our halls again and want to continue their efforts in Equinox Music Festival 2023. They are excited to return to this project and take a leadership role in this initiative for the coming year with the first-year students that comprise much of our community.
This model of Project has the potential to become an annual feature of the Ball State Living-Learning Community first year experience, and it is my hope that other institutions can see the potential for this kind of project in their communities. Students in many instances knew more about the needs of a concert better than the staff involved and dug deep into their audio production class experiences and asked important questions to the bands about their needs. It is because of this reason that this project worked for Ball State Housing and Residence Life and I think it would work at other institutions. The heights that students can reach when given the opportunity to explore their passions with the support of the institution cannot be understated and, in this project, students were asked to accomplish a task that is daunting even for seasoned event coordinators, but the learning that happens under this kind of pressure has the potential to impact on the community to reach far beyond the scope of the event. Equinox Music Festival, hosted by the CCIM Living-Learning Community Production Team is a project that is far more than a concert, it is an opportunity to connect with the passions that surround a multi-million-dollar industry.